Forgotten Little Books of Philosophy, 3

Introduction to Ortega, by Paulino Garagorri

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Andreu Navarra

Paulino Garagorri considered himself a disciple of Ortega y Gasset to such an extent that he attempted a kind of “Pierre Menard” exercise with his mentor’s works. Just three years after Ortega’s death, Garagorri seized the opportunity to deliver a dense and comprehensive course on the fundamental ideas of the author of Invertebrate Spain at the Aula de Cultura of the University of Madrid. The first version of this text was published in 1958 under the title Ortega, una reforma de la filosofía (Ortega, A Reform of Philosophy), during a time of fervent Orteguian devotion, competing with the work of Julián Marías, who had long been organising Ortega’s unpublished materials and writing about him. For Marías, Ortega’s vital reason represented a definitive philosophical statement, yet he maintained a degree of stylistic individuality. Garagorri, by contrast, sought to become Ortega, adopting his voice and employing his own body and pen as mediums through which the Master could continue to speak, with his idioms, adjectives, and examples intact.

Indeed, Ortega’s idiolect is unmistakable in this series of lectures, which in 1970, together with two shorter texts, became Introducción a Ortega (Alianza). Garagorri’s primary rival in the didactic presentation of Ortega’s thought was Ferrater Mora, whose Ortega y Gasset: An Outline of His Philosophy appeared in 1956, followed by its Spanish translation, Ortega y Gasset: Etapas de una filosofía (Barcelona, Seix Barral, 1958).

Although Garagorri and Ferrater shared the same goal, their books are vastly different. Ferrater offered a straight line, while Garagorri traced spiralling evolutions. Those wishing to learn about the progression of Ortega’s thought within a clear, pedagogical tripartite framework would turn to Ferrater’s work. However, for those wanting to experience Ortega’s philosophical method—diving into the theoretical climax of his system—Garagorri’s manoeuvres and parables are the better choice. Ferrater’s text is linear, while Garagorri, who contributed to an early attempt at a truly comprehensive edition of Ortega’s Complete Works and served as secretary for Revista de Occidente during its second phase, focuses primarily on two major works: The Modern Theme (1923) and Concord and Liberty (1940), with references to Man and Crisis (1933). Yet the spiralling structure and overall tone of his lectures bear a closer resemblance to the monumental What is Philosophy? (1929).

Several key ideas about Ortega are emphasised repeatedly in Garagorri’s book, starting with this observation: “Philosophical innovations usually involve finding new solutions to existing problems. But when what is new is not just another solution, but rather a redefinition that shifts the terms of the problem and reframes it within a new horizon, we are witnessing a reform of the discipline: such is the case with Ortega”. Marías went even further, positioning Ortega’s philosophy as the culmination of all previous thought and the herald of a new epoch in his History of Philosophy.

Garagorri agreed: Ortega was the greatest Spanish thinker of all time, with an unprecedented international reach, as he bridged the dramatic chasm between reason and human life—a division that had plagued European thought since Parmenides.

This new epoch, Ortega proposed, would take shape in a “Faculty of Culture” overseeing both technical and humanistic studies—a vision outlined in Mission of the University (1930). Garagorri sought to embody this idea within the Aula de Cultura where he delivered his lectures. Such performative gestures were typical of Ortega, whose caricatures often involved him speaking about theatre in a theatre or discussing the concept of a classroom within a classroom. Garagorri also grasped the intricate interplay between “beliefs” and “ideas,” concepts he explores in the final section of his course: “Philosophy emerged in the hearts of certain men when they felt at odds with the prevailing beliefs of their time and had the incomparable audacity to replace them with new ones”. The past, almost imperceptible, shapes our actions in the form of adopted beliefs, which serve as a foundation. On this foundation, new ideas must be integrated—anchored in history yet dynamically oriented toward the future.

Man is made of history, of past attempts to survive: “If nature were entirely hostile to us, humanity would have perished as a species; if it were entirely benevolent, we would live completely dependent on its support”. Nature, Garagorri argues, is an egocentric concept, imbued with our human interpretations. Reason itself is inseparable from history. There are no “things-in-themselves,” only “importances”—human concerns and interpretations that must be continually examined. Outside human life, there are no concepts or reason, no constancy, and certainly nothing eternal.

Conclusions: “The thesis of innate, absolutely true principles is, from our rigorous perspective, as gratuitous a claim as the primitive magic that displaced emerging philosophy”; and “Reality is not nature, nor is it consciousness, [Ortega] tells us, but rather my life, each person’s life, human life”. The notion of being is a dogmatic imposition: “The question of being only makes sense if we presuppose that it exists—that is, if we are already entrenched in the belief in being”. This is how Paulino Garagorri, paraphrasing and invoking Ortega, delivers the final blow to Western Metaphysics, proposing a completely different playing field, with vital reason as the core of any serious study of what it means to be human.

Introduction to Ortega (1970) is perhaps the least “small” and least “forgotten” of the philosophical works examined in this series, yet as a comprehensive gloss on Ortega’s system, it deserves recognition as a radical exercise in philosophical effort during a time not particularly favourable to liberal speculation.

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